Similarities
by dyingUta
Summary: Tenzo wasn't the only experiment to survive Orochimaru. Or that fic where Mukuro dies only to find himself imprisoned in a creepy lab underground. Talk about deja vu


**AN:**

fic inspired by blackkat's anon even if I tweaked it a little bit. yeah this happened.

Rokudou Mukuro, Mist Guardian of the Vongola Neo Primo, the sole owner of the Six Paths of Reincarnation as well as the Possession Bullet, is dead. He is very familiar with the concept - having died more than once - but he's pretty sure this time it's for good. Why else would he wake up in a lab tank, weak and in a child's body once again, if this is not to be his personal hell?

He looks around but finds no signs of captors or torturers, just rows of other tanks just like his filled with children just like him. Disgusting. His neighbor to his right is already reaching some kind of decomposure state. Mukuro still isn't certain this isn't hell or just a hallucination, but he's never been someone to lie down and take it. He has anihilated the entire Estraneo famiglia before, and just because dear Tsunayoshi pleaded him to sheath his claws does not mean he doesn't have them still.

Mukuro clenches and unclenches his fists, testing his grip strength. It's pathetic, this body has been severely malnourished prior to his soul awakening. It's likely that in a few more days he'd have died and joined the many corpses around him. At least he isn't restrained, he thinks, remembering his time with the Vindice. He swims closer to the tank walls and taps the glass. Mukuro knows, at least in a subconscious level, that no normal punch of his will be able to break it. Perhaps his body had tried it before, even if he doesn't remember it.

He can't feel the whisper of his mist flames anymore, but there is something else in its place. It burns and echoes throughout his body, as if eager to be set free. His right eye itches and he wonders if it still work. If he's been thoroughly depowered together with his frail body. Something tells him he hasn't. Mukuro is almost sure that thing is his pride.

He isn't able to talk as he's been submerged and his lungs are filled just like a fetus in the womb, but his thoughts are clear as he activates the Asura path and the number four once again glows in his eye. Strength fills his body and he feels the crawling of that something in his right eye. Success. He crashes his fist against the reinforced glass and grunts as it breaks around him.

Mukuro coughs out the taste of captivity still in his lungs and looks around. No sirens of alarm were raised, as if the place had been abandoned. This might explain why his body was so weak. There wasn't anyone here to feed it. He's naked but it almost doesn't register over the turns of clogs in his mind. He needs to check if there's anyone besides him left alive. He gets up on both feet and immediately stumbles, and this body has no muscle memory to soften his fall. He gets up again, slower this time, his burst of strength gone with the shards of glass.

He walks slowly to every tank and checks their status. Dead. Dead. Rotting. Just a head. Dead. Dead. Mukuro is almost giving up and looking for an exit when he sees him. A brown haired boy around his body's age, floating in his tank and blinking.

Mukuro rushes over, adrenaline overriding his weakness for just a moment and he knocks on the glass separating him and the only other living being in this hellhole. The boy blinks again, harder this time and then his entire focus shifts onto him. His eyes are round, Mukuro thinks distantly. Like an owl. Are you real?, they seem to say and Mukuro almost wants to ask the same question but he doesn't. What he does is conjure up Ashura once again, even though it drains him, and punches the glass with all the force he has left.

The boy coughs out his lungs and Mukuro watches over him, face blank. He didn't expect to find anyone. The reality of once again saving a child from experimentation sinks in, and he doesn't know what to think of it. He isn't a compassionate person, using others as if they were pieces in a long game of chess, but he doesn't feel annoyed by this new responsibility. It feels good, he realises, to have such control over someone. Over their safety. Mukuro hadn't noticed how neglected he'd felt with his dear Chrome growing independent from him, even if she still respected him above everyone else. This boy without anyone could be a new opportunity for him.

Mukuro waits for the coughs to stop and then asks, in a childish voice rough with disuse. "What's your name?" Such a simple question, but by the way those large eyes widen even more, perhaps it's the most important one. He hears his answer, small and fragile and afraid. "I don't know. I can't remember anything from before." Mukuro fights back a grin. This is perfect. He sets his face into a sympathetic frown. "Oh, I'm sorry this happened to you. If it helps you in anyway, I don't remember anything from before either! Actually I don't even remember what happened before I woke up. Who was the one to keep us in here, do you know?"

The nameless boy shudders and that's confirmation enough. "I never learned his name. He only talked about his research and how we were all failures. I think the fact we're alive is good enough, but he kept raving on about wood release. If you hadn't come when you did I'd have tried to activate it myself or die trying."

Oh that's a lot to take in, Mukuro decides. The boy sure is chatty for someone who doesn't remember a single thing about his past. "Do you think you have it? This wood release? I'm still tired from before and I don't know how to take us out of here."

The boy scratches at his tangled long locks before sighing in acceptance. "I can try. I'm not sure how to do it though." Mukuro waves a hand at him. "Just do what comes naturally to you. I did the same with my eye technique and it worked." The boy doesn't appear reassured but he tries to relax his stance. Then he brings up his hands together as if praying for a miracle and, before Mukuro can even mock him for it in the inside, large trunks of wood erupt from underground and smash into the nearby tanks and into the ceiling.

Mukuro laughs, surprised, and doesn't acknowledge the way the boy flinches at the sound of it. Yes, his new little Chrome will be very useful indeed.

 **AN:** Mukuro was supposed to be some kind of savior but I guess he had other ideas. Poor Tenzo


End file.
